2nd Feb 2017: Battlegroup 1973 Yom Kippur

This week saw the first try out of our Iron Fist Battlegroup 1973 Arab-Israeli war rules adaptations. The scenario involved an Egyptian force pushing out of the Gidi pass, attempting to capture the strategically important road junction of “Spotonmap”. Rapidly deploying into that same road junction was one platoon of Israeli M48 Magachs and one platoon of M51 Super Shermans, supported by a motorised platoon of infantry.

The Egyptians pushed forward a full company of T-55s, supported by infantry in BTR-50s on their right flank. The Israelis rapidly deployed the Super Shermans to the left of the village, while the Magachs pushed into the village, to take up obscured firing positions to cover the main axis of the Egyptian advance.

We had made the Israeli tank crews “panzer aces”, to reflect the superior IDF gunnery and the +1 really started to tell. Soon the 2 platoons of T-55s on the Egyptian left were burning. The remaining T-55 platoon in the Egyptian centre was doing better, but despite getting a few hits, the penetration rolls were incredibly unlucky.

The Egyptians did manage to deploy one Sagger team on the far right and this engaged the left-most Magach, managing to knock it out with its second missile. Simon (co-Egyptian commander) also managed to push a BTR-50 into the far right of the village, and under covering fire of a second deployed infantry section, managed to storm and eliminate a defending Israeli infantry section and also eliminate their supporting M113 with an RPG.

However, by this time, the last of the Egyptian 1^st wave armour had now been eliminated and although a second wave of T-55 was now rolling forward, this time employing proper tactics of firing HE on the move to suppress the Israeli armour, they were not pinning the Israeli armour fast enough. So, the win went to Greg’s Israelis.

Overall the rule mods seemed to work and the result looked reasonable historical. Next round will be in the Golan heights, with the real stars of the show, the Shot Kal Centurions!

Models are mostly Battlefront, with some Khurasan, all in 15mm.

Elsewhere, there was an ACW skirmish, using Sharpe Practice 2 and a rather hectic game of pirates!

 

26th Jan 2017: To The Strongest: Perperna in Spain

 

Another great game of To The Strongest and the first outing of my Victrix Sertorian Roman / Spanish army. Perperna had four Roman legionary units and a selection of Lusitanian allies. Opposed to him was a Spanish / Celtiberian army.

Fred’s Spanish/Celtiberian army opened by trying to push both flanks of the Sertorian force, with some success. This drew troops from the Sertorian centre and started to stretch their line. At this point the ‘deep’ Celtiberian units launched forward. The Sertorian legionaries held for a while, but then one of the Celtiberian units broke through and the Sertorian line started to collapse. Next time Sertorius himself will have to lead his force!